Biography
Early life:
Family background
The Mahler family came from eastern Bohemia and were of humble circumstances; the composer's grandmother had been a street pedlar. Bohemia was then part of the Austrian Empire; the Mahler family belonged to a German-speaking minority among Bohemians, and was also Jewish. From this background the future composer developed early on a permanent sense of exile, "always an intruder, never welcomed".
Bernhard Mahler, the pedlar's son and the composer's father, elevate...